GETTING MOBILE

SEO RIGHT

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Bryson Meunier

Resolution Media

@BrysonMeunier

#SMX #14C

October 1, 2013

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DOES GOOGLE REALLY CARE?

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TWO METAPHORS FOR MOBILE CHANGE

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TWO METAPHORS FOR MOBILE CHANGE

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RKG: 1 IN 4 GOOGLE SEARCHES IS MOBILE

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MOBILE INTERNET USAGE DOUBLING EVERY YEAR

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GOOGLE: MOBILE = 40% OF SEARCHES IN INDIA (2011)

• “Mobile search is definitely going to surpass desktop search. The lines will pass, and I

think they’ll pass before anyone thought they would.”

– Scott B. Huffman, Google Engineering Director who leads the search evaluation team and works on mobile search

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/technology/25mobile.html

GOOGLE: MOBILE SEARCH WILL BE BIGGER THAN DESKTOP

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Source: http://www.biakelsey.com/company/press-releases/120418-Mobile-Local-Search-Volume-Will-Surpass-Desktop-Local-Search-in-2015.asp

KELSEY GROUP: MOBILE SEARCH WILL BE BIGGER THAN DESKTOP IN 2015

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MULTISCREEN USER IS HERE.

Source: http://www.google.com/think/research-studies/the-new-multi-screen-world-study.html11

MULTISCREEN USER IS HERE.

Source: http://www.google.com/think/research-studies/the-new-multi-screen-world-study.html12

QUERIES ARE (OFTEN) DIFFERENT

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NEW WAYS TO ENGAGE

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MARKETERS ARE RECOGNIZING MOBILE SEO

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SEARCH RESULTS ARE DIFFERENT

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2012: GOOGLE SMARTPHONE SEARCH LARGELY UNUSABLE

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Full study at http://resolutionmedia.com/us/white-papers/rank-higher-in-google-mobile-search/

NEW GUIDELINES IN 2013

• No App Interstitials

• No Faulty Redirects

• Redirects to Homepage

• Smartphone-only 404s

• No Unplayable Videos

• No Slow-loading Pages

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“To improve the search experience for smartphone users and address their pain

points, we plan to roll out several ranking changes in the near future that address

sites that are misconfigured for smartphone users.”

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2013/06/changes-in-rankings-of-

smartphone_11.html

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NEAR FUTURE?

Smartphone only

404

App interstitial

Redirects to homepage

Unplayable videosSlow loading

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Smartphone only 404

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• Brand pages not

available in mobile

• Multiple brand

queries lead to three

smartphone only error

pages

• Error pages are

indexed

Smartphone only 404

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urls

Redirects to homepage

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• All queries to

Indianapolis TV

channel appear to

redirect to

homepage

• Each passes through

/redirect/index.php

before sending

searcher to

homepage

Redirects to homepage

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App interstitial

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• App interstitial

appears when user

agent is detected

• Message is specific to

operating system

App interstitial

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Slow loading

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• Site home page

takes more than 10

seconds to load on

3g connection

• Received 47/100 for

Mobile and 30/100 for

Desktop in Google’s

PageSpeed Insights

tool: http://developers.google.com/spee

d/pagespeed/insights/?url=m.thestar

.com

Slow loading

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Unplayable videos

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• Most videos on

tv.yahoo.com are not

playable on

smartphones

• Either displays plugin

not supported or “not

available in the

browser on mobile

devices” error

message

Unplayable videos

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SMARTPHONE SITES WITH MISCONFIGURATION ERRORS WIN

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Net rankings impact for

smartphone queries

PRELIMINARY TAKEAWAYS

• Google doesn’t appear to be penalizing for these smartphone

misconfigurations yet

• Fix all of them if you can in good time

• If app interstitials are profitable, your ranking will not suffer today from leaving

them up

• Mobile searcher experience will be important in the future, though not

necessarily today

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GOOGLE MISCONFIGURATIONS

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App interstitials Unplayable videos

LONG ROAD TO GOOGLE MOBILE SEARCH QUALITY

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App downloads for multiple platforms when I can only be on one phone

Useless content like printable coupons or

QR codes on mobile sites

Games or other content that don’t work on

mobile devices

Bryson Meunier

Director, SEO Strategy

Resolution Media

bmeunier@resolutionmedia.com

http://www.brysonmeunier.com

http://www.resolutionmedia.com

@brysonmeunier

+Bryson Meunier

Scan to visit

m.brysonmeunier.com

THANK YOU!

http://www.slideshare.net/SearchMarketingExpo

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